Italy Tour 2008 - Day 6 - Ravenna & Padua

En route from Assisi to Venice we stopped through near Ravenna and Padua to see Basiclias along the way. We stopped in Classis, several miles out of Ravenna to visit St Apollinare’s Basicilla. St. Apollinare is reported to have been made Bishop of Ravenna by St. Peter himself. In the first century, the area was largely Pagan and resisted the teachings of St. Apollinare. A number of years of capture, torture, release, and escape, after twenty six years serving as Bishop of Ravenna, St Apollinare, became a martyr for his faith.

Padoua was a little town with one heckuva church. The mosaics in the church are notable for they tell the story of the Transfiguration of Christ. With 12 white sheep, symbolically representing the 12 apostles, and Christ transfigured beneath a cross with his face in the center. Moses and Elijah, prophets from the Old Testament, are represented in mosaics in the sky, and in the upper Arch are the four Saints: John represented by an Eagle, Matthew, an angel, Mark, the Lion, Luke, the lamb. The church has ten Archbishops of Ravenna entombed in sarcophagi, carved in deep bas relief figures on greek marble.



Ravenna's known for some of the most prolific mosaic's in the region.

Moving onto Venice next =)